Title: Gnats
Author: pronker
Characters: Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, others
Era: The Clone Wars, after Anakin receives Ahsoka as his Padawan and also after an incident in which Obi-Wan once again receives not-a-quite-deadly injury.
Summary: Obi-Wan has a hospital stay. He ought to be used to them by now.
A/N: So I was musing over my addiction to angst, and set this tale in the Halls of Healing, place of many woes, endless vigils over the comatose, and the most satisfying angst due the health-challenged. Can this story be considered anti-angst? I hope so. It's a timely writing challenge.
IOIOIOIOIO
Dear Diary, you are brand new, shiny and really a thoughtful gi-
"Shut that window, Anakin, gnats are getting in!"
Anakin flicked a finger, the window slid shut, and then, Diary, I saw him school his face to a listening glaze, similar to the one he wore when I lectured him long ago. There was a hmmmmm and a gnat flitted by my ear, batting its silly head against the window. I stared pointedly at Anakin, but he examined the end of a fingernail as he settled in on the plastoid chair and did nothing. I continued.
"Sometimes I wonder whose operation I had. Everybody shook hands with the surgeon after it was over, I was told. Tributes were paid to the efficient staff here in the Halls, but nobody has a word to say for me."
"Poor baby."
"I'll admit that the patient would be nowhere without a healer. On the other hand, where would healers be without patients?"
"Uh-huh. You gonna eat that muja?"
Diary, is he still growing? Is that even possible? "Help yourself."
These things needed saying. "First, they put long white stockings on your legs to make you resemble a hoojib and then they dress you in that ridiculously abbreviated smock with the opening down the back - "
"You ssssss looked slurp kinda cute smack smack- "
" - I'll get you for that, Anakin - and the chartreuse knit cap was even worse - and then they splay you on a white counter under bright lights while everyone prods you to see if you're tender. I felt like a Shopping Day Special in the Meat Department."
Anakin sat up straight at this. "I was worried, Master."
Diary, how does his voice get all soft like that when other times he howls fit to wake the dead? Isn't he ever equanimical? "You needn't have been. Right after it happened, the ambulance slowed for every traffic light, and once we stopped while the driver went into a convenience store to buy almond-kwevvu crisp munchies."
Anakin licked his fingers and shrugged. "Yeah, you're right, I guess. The Padawan orderly was trying to put a red eight on a black ten when I got here before you did. Had to set her straight before she slid you onto the hover gurney." He rocked back and forth from the front legs to the back legs in his chair. "Your speeder got a smashed franistan supraorbital valve , crumpled left fender and broken thruster. It'll take the regular staff days to fix, but if they put me on it - "
"Spare me."
Diary, I wanted him to visit and now I can't wait for him to leave. Help me. And get that gnat away from my fruit basket.
IOIOIOIOIO
TBC